


All The King's Horses

by Safiyabat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Demon!Dean, Gen, Inside Sam's Brain, Mark of Cain, Suicidal Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/pseuds/Safiyabat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam is unable to restrain Demon!Dean to cure him on his own, he tracks down Gabriel and makes him an offer that makes even an archangel blanch.  Instead of giving Sam what he wants, the Trickster enlists the help of Castiel and Flagstaff to help both brothers remember that it was their love story that saved the world once... by sending them on a quest through Sam's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my beta, liron_aria! 
> 
> This was written over the summer - as in, well before season 10 aired and well in advance of actually experiencing Demon!Dean in all of his... uh, glory. So I guess we'll have to call this an AU after 9.23.

Gabriel had done an excellent job of hiding. It was kind of his forte, a specialty he’d developed over the centuries since that whole thing with the Prophet and the desert. He’d covered his tracks perfectly once Metatron’s hold on him was broken. Absolutely no hint of his Grace could have shone through the elaborate disguises he put on it. He knew that the Winchesters were out there running around but they had other things on their mind, other problems. There was no reason for them to look for him. If he wasn’t obvious about his less angelic proclivities he wasn’t likely to run into them, right? Of course right.

And it worked – for a whopping month. He felt it when Metatron’s spell chaining Heaven and controlling the Angel Tablet was broken. The Way was unblocked now – returning to Heaven was once again an option and he could conceivably head back to see why he was thus released. You know, if the mood so struck him. On the other hand if he could get to Heaven so could other angels, and there was no way most angels were going to be content to slum it with the mud monkeys. If Heaven were full of angels Gabriel wanted to be as far from Heaven as it was possible to get without sprouting horns and a tail.

Which meant that he stayed in his apartment. Which meant that as he sat on his couch catching up on what had happened on CSI between the time Lucifer had stabbed him and the time he’d come back the door to his apartment quietly opened up and Sam Winchester walked in. The kid looked awful – sallow complexion, stubble, hair that hadn’t seen much shampoo in longer than Gabriel liked to think about. His sunken eyes, though, they glittered with terrible purpose. He closed and locked the door behind him, slipping his lockpicks back into the sea of plaid that enveloped his frame. “How are you even here?” Gabriel scowled. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something was definitely off about Sam and it wasn’t the inattention to grooming.

“Door was unlocked,” Sam told him. His voice was soft, flat. Back when he’d known Sam he’d spoken in firm tones, even when begging for Dean’s life. Now it was all dullness, a sagging drumhead left out in the rain.

“No. It wasn’t. I triple checked. I was getting ready to enjoy some CSI reruns and I wanted my alone time with Jorja Fox.”

Sam looked a little disturbed by that, but he shrugged. “It was unlocked when I got done with it.” 

The archangel rolled his eyes. “Did no one ever teach you any sense of private property?” “The closest thing to morality lessons I ever got was a Batman cartoon, Gabriel. John wasn’t exactly concerned with teaching us right from wrong.” He walked over to the fridge and grabbed two beers. 

“Here’s what I want to know – how are you even here? Shouldn’t you be someplace very warm and overcrowded?” he demanded, watching as the giant moved back into the living room. His sense of outrage grew. He’d just purloined his beer like it wasn’t even a problem – like it was his damn house! 

“Oh. Right. That. Turns out no one could leave well enough alone so here I am.” He gestured to himself, taking in his whole body. “For all that’s worth. And for the record, it’s only warm when Michael’s feeling social. Your other brother burns cold. Very, very cold.” He gave a shiver that didn’t look entirely voluntary and looked away for a moment. 

“Yeah, well. How’d you get out?” He didn’t know how long the kid had been trapped down there, but sticking him with a vengeful Mikey had never been part of the plan. Even leaving him with Lucifer had been more inevitable than punitive. And maybe reminding him of his trip downstairs hadn’t been a kindness. And maybe the fact that someone referred to getting rescued from Hell as someone else not being able to leave well enough alone was kind of a red flag, even for an archangel who didn’t like the rescuee much.

“Castiel tried to fix it. Left my soul behind, Death went in for it. Eventually.” He sipped from his beer. “Apparently I’m a real asshole without my soul.” 

“Humans need their souls, bucko,” Gabriel pointed out. “It’s kind of crucial.” 

“Yeah. I, uh, had the chance to meet some people who’d had theirs removed by Abaddon and let me tell you, it turns out that I wasn’t as bad as I could have been. Which isn’t saying much. I mean, I was still pretty awful. Anyway. Not the point.” He glanced back at Gabriel. Sam hadn’t ever been the chatty Cathy type, he remembered. He’d been good at pleading his case. He’d been good at getting others to talk about themselves. He couldn’t remember ever having heard him talk about himself this much.

Gabriel was as old as the universe. He had seen galaxies born and die. He had seen things, done things, that were too terrible even for angelic language. He had been a holy messenger. He had been a god – still, technically, was both. He did not like having those glittering orbs on him. “How is it that I never noticed you coming up the stairs or anything?” he demanded, sipping his beer. “I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but –“

“Come on, Gabriel. I’ve learned things. I managed to hunt you down once, back all those years ago. This time I needed to be even more sure you didn’t sneak off before I got to talk to you.”

“What, you just couldn’t go another day without playing catch-up?” He sneered. He’d finally figured out what was so “off” about the Winchester. He couldn’t feel Sam at all, and that made his Grace chafe inside his skin. “Spare me. And go away.” 

Sam snorted. “I’m not interested in playing catch-up, Gabriel. And I’m not planning to out you. You’re hiding out here for a reason and I totally get that.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” the archangel spat. 

Suddenly Sam was up and in his space, looming and terrifying. How could a mere human cause any kind of a reaction in a creature with the power to bend reality with a snap of his fingers? “Do not,” Sam directed quietly, “tell me what I do and do not ‘get.’ Look. We’re not friends and that’s fine. I don’t really do friends, but you’re not Dean’s friend either and that’s why I’m coming to you instead of to one of Castiel’s little featherdusters.”

“Aw, Sammy. Have the angels not proven to be everything you’d imagined they’d be?” Gabriel taunted. Every instinct in him screamed at him to get away, and that was just wrong. 

“They’re everything I expected,” the hunter retorted, stepping back just enough to allow Gabriel his freedom of movement. “I need you to do something for me.”

“No.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re going to like it.”

“Does it involve more self-insert porn?”

“No.” Sam made a face. “That’s… that’s pretty repulsive on a lot of levels. Although if you can get into the bunker I think Dean has some DVDs you can have.” 

“The bunker? What, the Men of Letters’ bunker?”

“Sure thing. We’d kind of been squatting there for a while. Too long really.” He looked away again. 

“It was never warded against angels.”

“Wasn’t.” He gave a thin-lipped smile. “Look. Just hear me out. I’m absolutely positive you’ll say yes, because it’s a win for you no matter how you look at it.” 

“Getting involved with the Winchesters is never a win. For anyone. The last time I agreed to help you twerps my brother stabbed me in the chest. Angels don’t get an ‘afterlife,’ Sam. There’s just oblivion. Nothingness. Do you have any idea what that’s like?” He glared and turned his back. He should just smite Sam where he stood, but such an expression of Grace would reveal his location. 

“Not yet.” 

“What?” Gabriel swiveled his head around to look at the man.

“Dean took on the Mark of Cain.” 

The trickster stood, gaping. “You’re joking.” He was pacing before he knew it, Sam’s eyes tracking him the whole time. “That’s… That’s about the dumbest thing I have ever heard of him doing. I mean Dean was already a shining example of his species when it came to personality and that thing? I mean he must have been foaming at the mouth!” 

His companion gave a little snort. The motion his mouth made couldn’t be described as a smile, not even a smirk. “Yeah. Well, that was before he actually got his hands on the First Blade.”

“Whose idiotic idea was that?” He turned on the giant, pointing a finger. “Did you give him the First Blade?”

“No. Crowley tracked it down – this whole… thing… was engineered by Crowley – and he doled it out like a ration of rum until the time came to kill Abaddon. And he killed her, and then he went up against Metatron. And failed.”

“And you let him go in without backup.” 

“Well I wasn’t exactly expecting the knockout punch to the face.” 

“You should’ve been.” Gabriel had already been softening, but Sam didn’t know that. He saw the kid deflate a little. “Aw, Sam – wait. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Of course you did. That’s why you said it. And you’re right. It’s not like he wasn’t already… and hadn’t… I mean… Anyway. So Dean’s a Knight of Hell now. Serving Crowley and tearing it up as near as I can tell.”

“Keeping tabs on demons are we?” He shrugged. “I needed to know how bad it was. And it’s pretty bad, and I get that I have no one to blame but myself.”

“How about the guy who made the decision to accept the Mark of freaking Cain?” Gabriel snorted. “Seriously, Sam. Get it together.” 

He sighed. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.” He took a drink. “I’ve got a plan to fix it.”

“Sam, no. We’ve been over this a thousand times. Literally. You can’t keep saving each other from the consequences of your decisions. He made the decision, now he gets to reap what he sowed. End of story.” 

“I get what you mean. I really do. I mean him stepping in to ‘save’ me has never worked out well for the rest of the world, has it?” He smirked.

“That’s not what I –“

“Well? It hasn’t. But that’s not what’s happening here. He’s a Knight of Hell, and he’s Crowley’s little lap dog to boot. He wiped out a shopping mall in Singapore yesterday for fun, Gabriel. For kicks. No survivors. Just him, a donkey’s jawbone and so much blood it ran out the doors and into the streets in a stream. He has to be stopped, and the only thing that can kill a Knight of Hell is in his hands.” 

“So what – are you going to go to Cain and demand the Mark yourself? Because I have to say, that’s even dumber than what Dean did.” 

He shook his head. Winchesters. “What? No. That’s – I’m a lot of things, Gabriel, but I’m not an idiot. That’s where you come in.” 

“You’re putting a hit out on your brother?” He blinked. That was about as unexpected as it got. “That’s pretty freaking cold, Sam.” 

“That’s not Dean. Not anymore. But no, that’s not what I’m asking you to do.” He angled himself to face Gabriel directly. “If he hadn’t been… vulnerable to Crowley’s manipulation, he wouldn’t have given himself up to the Mark like that. He’d never have put himself in that position.” 

“What are you asking, Sam? I’m a sneaky bastard, but even I can’t follow where you’re trying to go with this.”

“You need to erase me from history.” 

Gabriel paused. “What? No. That’s – no. That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?” The absolute calm with which Sam spoke sent chills through Gabriel’s grace. He found himself reminded of the six months Sam had spent hunting him after the Mystery Spot, the creature he’d become. This time, though, his target was himself. Never let it be said that Sam Winchester was anything but thorough. “If Dean hadn’t felt compelled to leave the bunker he’d never have been vulnerable to Crowley. If he hadn’t been so concerned about ‘rescuing’ me he wouldn’t have felt compelled to leave the bunker. If he hadn’t been hunting he wouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with. And if I never existed he’d never have been hunting at all.” Gabriel found himself drawn in by Sam’s voice. “Think about it, Gabriel. No Sam, no Apocalypse. You could still be running around smiting dicks who deserve it. You’d never have died. Your other brother would still be free. The rest of Heaven – all of the angels killed in the Civil War, all of the angels killed in the War on Earth – none of it would have ever happened. Balthazar would still be alive. Anna would still be alive. “And you – Gabriel – you can be the one to make it all happen. You can be the one to save the world. To fix everything that’s ever happened to Heaven since God left. Instead of being the brother who ran, you’ll be the savior. The hero. The one who finally got rid of Sam Winchester.” He smiled now, a deep, lethal smile that was probably personally responsible for laws all across the Bible Belt. 

He glared. “Do women ever actually say no to you?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had occasion to find out. Look. It’s simple. Look at the benefits.” 

Gabriel’s skin ran with goosebumps. “Sam, you don’t exactly get a cookie for sacrificing yourself like this,” he pointed out, as gently as he was able. “You don’t get anything. You cease to be. No afterlife, no nothing.”

“I told you. It’s a win-win situation.” 

“You – you have a place in Heaven, Sam.” He faced the man. “It’s been assured for years – decades, really. Why the Hell would you pass that up?” 

“I’ve seen it. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything. Dean gets the life he should have had all along, you get to be the hero, and I get to go away. Literally everyone goes away happy.” 

“So how come you didn’t want to go to Castiel with this one?” he hedged, mind racing. That a person could come to him and just want to be erased like this – it made him want to vomit, honestly. And angels didn’t vomit. “I know he doesn’t have my juice but between the whole flock upstairs they could probably manage to pull something together.”

“Dean won’t be able to live with what he’s done. And I want him to not remember me. I’m a duty to him, a chore, but one he’ll do terrible things to manage. If I never existed he can’t bring me back.” He smiled again, mirthlessly. “It’s pretty permanent, never existing.”

“Sam, you’re sick. You need help.”

Sam gripped his arm, claw-like fingers strong enough to bruise. “I need your help.” 

Gabriel paused. “All right, kid. I’ll do it. I wish you’d reconsider.”

“No chance.” 

“That’s what I figured. I guess we’ll do it tomorrow morning.” He sighed deeply. 

“Why wait?” Sam tilted his head to the side.

“Last night on Earth, kid. Don’t you want to go out with a bang? Enjoy it a little? It’s literally your last chance ever to have a little bit of fun.” 

“Not really my thing.” He put his beer down on a coaster. If he noticed that the coaster hadn’t been there ten seconds before he didn’t say anything. 

“Well, what did you do the last time – you know, before you jumped?” 

“I sat on the hood of the Impala and reminded myself why it had to happen.” He walked toward the door. “Thanks, Gabriel. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The angel slumped down onto his couch. He couldn’t fault Sam’s logic, not from a purely reasonable standpoint. That in no way mitigated the absolute horror of what he’d just sat through.

He didn’t like Sam Winchester. He never had. The kid was part demon, and angels naturally recoiled from something as tainted as Azazel’s unholy little spawn. He had knowingly copulated with a demon and while Gabriel’s own sex life wouldn’t really bear a lot of examination he’d never stooped so low. He had released Lucifer from the Cage – unknowingly, it was true, but he’d done it nevertheless. 

But he’d also put him back, signing himself up for unending suffering as a result. He was a hero. He should be feasted, celebrated. He should not be begging an archangel to erase him from history just to undo the consequences of his brother’s bad decisions. That Sam could think of nothing to do on his supposed last night on Earth other than to sit and ponder why his utter eradication was the best possible solution – well, that was just kind of pathetic. And it was a real far cry from the bickering brothers that had first caught his attention all those years ago. Those guys – well, those guys might have had a destiny, but those guys were also the guys you could pass a plan along to and at least hope that it would have a chance of happening. They were raw material that became something great. 

This? This was a spent match, depleted soil that couldn’t even support weeds anymore. This was Carthage after the Romans finished with it, and Gabriel knew he’d been one of the legionnaires laying down the salt. 

He should just kill Sam and take his soul to Heaven. It wasn’t what he wanted but it was the kindest solution. The amount of pain the kid was in – well, it wasn’t something that the brothers were going to be able to fix by hugging it out and having emotionally constipated beers on the hood of the Impala. 

Of course, the problem with that was that Winchesters, well, they were useful. They did things, accomplished things. He couldn’t justify letting them go to waste. Besides – after everything even Sam Winchester deserved a happy ending. Dean probably did too, even if he’d become a demon, through what sounded like a monumental act of stupidity. 

Fortunately, Gabriel had centuries of coming up with plans on the fly. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but when the Winchesters were involved it tended to involve consequences of cosmic significance. He called out to Castiel, who appeared with an unarmed healer angel in tow. “I thought I told you to come alone,” he told the younger angel. 

“I wished to ascertain the safety of the situation. The demon who used to be Dean Winchester has been hunting angels. No angel descends to earth alone anymore. Caution is imperative. This is Flagstaff. ” The dark-haired angel looked around. “You appear shaken, brother.” 

“I’ve just had a conversation with Sam Winchester.”

“How did he find you? You have concealed yourself from all eyes.” Maybe he’d learned something in all these years because that was definitely a note of accusation in his typical monotone.

“Sam is very, very good at what he does, Castiel. Don’t underestimate him.” He outlined the conversation he’d had. “How long has his mental state leaned that way?” 

“It is difficult to say. He made a similar request during a time-travel experience in the middle of the Apocalypse.” 

Flagstaff turned horrified eyes onto her commander. “And this didn’t concern you why?”

“Dean felt that there was nothing of concern there. Besides, we had more important concerns.” 

The female angel’s face spoke volumes about her feelings about Dean Winchester and the “more important concerns." Gabriel decided he liked her. “I have extensive experience with mental health counseling,” she began. “

We’re going to let him think we’re doing it,” Gabriel interrupted. 

“Excuse me?” both junior angels repeated. 

“We’re going to let him think I’m going to erase him from history. Then we’re going to find Dean and cure him. And then we’ll deal with whatever went wrong between them.” They blinked at him. “Oh come on. If Dad wanted them separated he wouldn’t have made them soulmates.” 

“Gabriel,” Castiel warned, “I do not think that Dean would welcome outside interference.” 

“Good thing we’re not asking permission then, little brother.” Gabriel gave them his best shit-eating grin and pulled a lollipop out of his jacket pocket.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam showed up at Gabriel’s apartment at five the next morning. The sun had barely started to show itself over the horizon. The archangel blinked at him a few times. “Don’t you think it’s a little early to be getting on with the end of your life? Maybe want to go on and get a good breakfast? An omelet? French toast with strawberry syrup?” He waggled his eyebrows up and down.

Sam bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t want to be reminded of the strawberry syrup. He didn’t want to be reminded of anything about Broward County. He honestly never would have wanted to have contact with Gabriel again, but he couldn’t find a way around this one. He’d already tried to chase Dean down and contain him alone; Dean had come at him with nothing but a hammer and a smile as a result. He wouldn’t have much cared if Dean killed him, it wasn’t much less than he deserved, but he couldn’t in good conscience have Dean running around the way he was. Someone needed to neutralize him, to make him safe or take him out, and this was the only way Sam could see to do it. 

The fact that he got to rest, finally, with no possibility of ever being brought back, was just icing on the cake. He could finish this, he could get it right. Well, sort of. He could fix his mistakes. All of them. Sure, he’d never be around to appreciate it, to bask in the glory of a world where he hadn’t fucked up. Wasn’t that kind of the point? “I’ll pass, thanks,” he replied drily.

Gabriel deflated. “Come on, Sasquatch. It’s your last meal. Might as well make it worthwhile.”

He inhaled slowly. This was for Dean. This was all for Dean. “I’m not exactly food-motivated, Gabriel. Never have been. But thanks.” He’d have almost thought the diminutive archangel cared. Fortunately he’d learned better than that a long time ago.

“It is true,” came Castiel’s voice from farther inside the apartment. Gabriel opened the door wider and allowed Sam to enter, revealing that both Castiel and that dark-skinned angel that Dean had attacked were present. What was her name again? Flagstaff? “Sam’s relationship with food has never been positive although I must say, Sam, you seem to have neglected yourself exceptionally since your brother’s change.”

“Thanks for that, Cas,” Sam glared. “Why exactly are you here again?” 

Gabriel rolled his eyes and shut the door behind them. “There’s been a little bit of a snag in your plan, Sam.” His glare at Cas carried murder as he turned the deadbolts. “I can’t erase you from history quite yet.” 

A pit formed in the middle of Sam’s stomach. “Why not, exactly?” He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to hide the way his heart just doubled in speed. Here he was about to give himself over to a whole gaggle of angels – or whatever the plural of angels was – and the bargain wasn’t going to be filled? He’d been an idiot to hope. He hadn’t even come armed. “Calm down there, drum machine,” the archangel instructed, patting him on the chest. “It’s nothing you did. And I’m going to hold my end of the bargain. You were right – I mean, you are what you are. It’s an affront to the natural order and everything in me cries out to remove you from the world like, like sauce on a favorite white shirt.”

“Descriptive,” he had to admit with a nod. He had to hand it to Gabriel; the guy didn’t insult him by sugar coating things. He’d always been a stain. “So what’s the snag?” 

“Your brother’s basically Cain.” He leaned against the doorway. “He’s more than just a demon. He’s more than a Knight of Hell. We have to fix him, break that magic. Otherwise, much as it pains me to say it, you destroying yourself will do nothing but give me a moment’s satisfaction.” 

Sam paused and considered. “That’s not what my research suggested,” he said after a moment. Everything he’d found in the Bunker, everything he’d managed to find online strongly suggested that if Dean had never taken on the Mark of Cain he wouldn’t be a demon now. 

“Oh, and you’ve never screwed anything up?” Gabriel scoffed. “Please. Or do I need to remind you of a certain dark-eyed enchantress?” In the background, Castiel winced and Flagstaff looked away. “Come on – I was there, Bucko, when Cain became what he became. Don’t you forget it. I was watching. I knew Abel. Are you really so arrogant as to think that what you found or didn’t find in some dusty old tome in some grungy old basement outweighs the concrete knowledge of God’s Messenger?” Gabriel got right up and into his space, puffing himself up as much as he could. He could feel Grace crackling around him. 

And of course there would be something he’d missed. He’d screwed this up just like everything else. “So what’s your solution?” he ground out. “I’ve tried to trap and cure him already once myself. It, uh, it didn’t work out so hot.”

“That’s because you’re human, Sam,” Flagstaff pointed out gently. Gabriel cleared his throat and she glared. “For all intents and purposes at least. You’ve done extraordinary things, but you’re still human. Even Castiel would be hard pressed to take him down. Fortunately, you came to the right person to help you with this problem.” She glared at the two male angels and took Sam’s hand, leading him to the sofa. He followed along even though the touch of a strange angel made him want to scrub the skin right off his hand. 

“That would be Gabriel,” Cas supplied helpfully. Castiel apparently thought he had the brains of sautéed kale but hey, he’d screwed up the research so maybe he wasn’t far off. 

“Got it, thanks,” he told Heaven’s apparent leader. “So what exactly do you need me for?”

“Your blood, of course,” Cas pointed out. “No ritual of this sort could possibly be carried out without the use of human blood, and you’re what we have.” 

“Also,” Flagstaff told him, patting his hand softly while massacring her boss with her eyes, “he has a tie to your blood, whether he likes it or not. It will be useful.”

“The only problem is that it will be excruciatingly painful. For you,” Gabriel hastened to add. “Not for me.” He gave a giant, cheesy grin. “I’m not going to feel a thing. So what I want to do is knock you out – put you so far under you have no goddamn clue what’s going on. You with me?”

Sam frowned and shook his head a little. Flagstaff was still holding his hand. Why, exactly, was she holding his hand again? Did she think he was six years old or something? “I’m a little uncomfortable with sleeping around angels. No offense, but –“

“But you’ve had a fairly negative relationship with our species over your life and you’re reluctant to let your guard down,” the doctor-angel smiled. “I understand.” Sam very much doubted that she understood – how could she? But he probably shouldn’t judge. He didn’t know anything about her, after all. “But Sam, we only want to spare you as much pain as we can.”

“The point isn’t just to remove the Mark, though,” Sam insisted. “The point is to remove everything that led up to him taking the Mark in the first place. All of the… just everything.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, buddy boy.” Gabriel leered at him. “You made me a promise and I’m going to collect. But in the meantime, we need for you to be alive and all the screaming and thrashing around will annoy the neighbors. So. What you’re going to do is lie down like a good little abomination, close those pretty little eyes of yours and go to sleep. Between Flagstaff and me we’re going to find you a nice, happy memory for you to hang out in while you wait. You’ll never feel a thing. I’ll make with the eradicating from the face of time and space as soon as we get that nasty mark business cleared up so don’t worry; big brother will never even know there was a darling little Sammy to begin with.” 

Flagstaff and Cas exchanged glances. “Is this still what you want, Sam?” the latter asked, coming forward and putting an awkward hand on Sam’s shoulder. 

Years ago, Cas had not been okay with this same plan. Granted, Dean would have been erased as well and Dean was absolutely Cas’ priority. And when Sam had objected to his life being saved the angel had once again disapproved of Sam’s choices. What had changed that Cas now supported Sam’s right to choose? Was it that Dean had become a demon? Was it because Sam’s choices now could fix everything that had come before? Sam’s choice now would fix Heaven too, because if he had never existed then the angelic wars would never have happened. Cas would never have slaughtered so many of his kind of it weren’t for Sam destroying everything he touched. “Yeah, Cas. This is what I want.” He paused. “I mean, I’m not okay with the whole angels messing with my memories thing. Again. But if it gets me to my goal? This is what I’ve always wanted.” 

Flagstaff’s weird patting of his hand stopped for a moment and she looked away. “Oh, Sam.” 

He frowned as she moved, still holding his hand, so that he could lie down on the couch. “It’s okay, Flagstaff. There’s nothing that I’ve –“ He stopped himself. “Look. If I can put just one thing right, I’m happy. Okay?” Why she should have that look on her face, like any angel gave a crap about any human never mind something like him, he didn’t know. But soon he wouldn’t care, and neither would she. 

Well, she might remember. Would she? He felt panic well up for a moment. What if they remembered? What if it didn’t work because the angels remembered? No. It had to work. The angels would not remember. Gabriel would see to it. The fact that he’d involved the other angels was annoying, worrying – but nothing could now be done about it. 

And he’d gone to Gabriel because the guy had a strong interest in getting rid of Sam, no loyalty or affection toward Dean and no soft spots or squeamishness about the sanctity of human life or whatever. In this, he’d done his planning perfectly. Gabriel loved to screw him, but he wouldn’t screw him on this. He forced himself to close his eyes for what would (hopefully, definitely, certainly) be the last time. He could control his breathing. There was no need to panic. Maybe some of the details had changed but everything was going to work out just fine. 

Flagstaff’s hand touched his forehead gently, lightly, and darkness closed in. 

He dreamed. Well, that was expected. They’d told him that they were going to put him into one of his memories for a while. They’d have to find one for him to be in, and that was a weird feeling. No, it wasn’t a weird feeling, it was a weird memory and a bad one at that. Lucifer had sifted through his memories like a baker through flour when he’d first taken possession of Sam, and then again when they’d landed in the Cage. He’d been looking for ammunition and he’d found it, plenty of it. He was probably still down there blasting away at Michael with twenty-five years’ worth of hunting memories and shitty choices. But the feeling of Grace carding through his psyche was just too familiar and he struggled, almost without knowing he was doing it. 

_“Sam” Flagstaff’s voice soothed in his head. “Be calm. Remember, we’re helping. This is part of your plan. This will fix things for you.”_

Right. This wasn’t Lucifer. This was necessary and he wasn’t going to have to remember it for very long anyway. He forced himself to relax. After all, there was no one he’d fought nearly as hard or as long as himself. 

He was on a street in San Francisco, standing in front of a storefront. It was dark, polished granite with gold lettering. His feet felt like lead. He should go inside – after all, he had the funds. Maybe not for anything huge or earth-shattering but that wasn’t Jess anyway. No, he hesitated because the thought was ridiculous. Sam Winchester, getting married? The universe itself would laugh at the very idea. A meteor would hit the building or something. Walking in would trigger some kind of cosmic event. What the Hell did he know about marriage or family or any of that crap? He’d never even been around the same woman for more than a few weeks at a time until Stanford. But he wanted this, Jess wanted this. They were going to be together forever, stupid dreams aside. Maybe his side of the church would be empty but he didn’t care. Her family was so warm, so welcoming -

_“Cut,” Gabriel’s voice interrupted. “Too angsty. It’s not like we don’t know how this ends.”_

_“We know how it all ends, Gabriel,” Flagstaff’s voice objected. “Can’t we let him enjoy a few moments of hope? She was the love of his life.”_

_“Oh, he loved her. No doubt about it. And she loved him. Have you seen her Heaven? It’s all Gigantor, all the time. Well, and chocolate chip cookies. A girl after my own heart. But don’t you know when this is from? Two days before Dean came and got him.”_

_“Isn’t that kind of the point?” she retorted. “It’s before everything happened. He was still happy, he had a future ahead of him. He still wanted to live.”_

_“Yeah, he looks real happy. He’s out like a light and he’s got tears making my couch cushions all soggy.”_

_“But if we played it on a loop,” the healer suggested. “I mean, it could work,right?”_

_“Flagstaff, the kid figured out a time loop I stuck him in for more than a hundred something days based on a minor detail he could only have noticed out of the corner of his eye. He took control of his brother’s dream from an experienced dream walker with nothing more than one dream walk and a bad attitude to spur him on. No way we’re settling for anything less than perfect. Next memory,” the archangel declared firmly._

Sam had a moment for humiliation at the notion of being in tears in front of these people – he’d never liked showing emotion in front of anyone, never mind angels – before the next dream rolled. He saw himself – around the same age as he’d been in the previous dream, maybe a few months older – in a musty tent on a stage. Dean was wearing a brown hoodie that was too large for him, Sam’s hoodie stolen in an attempt to keep himself warm or something. Sam remembered where they were, and he remembered when too. This was Nebraska. This was Roy LaGrange’s revival tent. This was the moment when Dean had been healed of his heart damage, before they’d learned that it had been done by Roy’s evil-minded bigot of a wife and her wicked spell. Before they’d had to prevent the healing of an innocent young woman’s terminal cancer to prevent Sue Ann’s murder of more people. 

But here, in this moment, Dean was alive. Dean was alive, he was going to live, and he was alive because Sam had done something right. He’d managed to pull it off, he’d solved the problem. He’d done something for Dean, proved to Dean that he did love him and want to be around him. 

_“Oh for the love of Pete, this one’s worse!” Gabriel’s voice cut in._

_“Are you really telling me that it’s a bad thing that Sam feels good about saving his brother’s life?” Flagstaff challenged._

_“He doesn’t feel good, lady. Look deeper. It’s already stained with the ‘after’ part of this memory. I think it took him all of what, four hours to figure out that this wasn’t a miracle but a case? And then of course the big lummox drowned in guilt about it.”_

_Of course Sam had drowned in guilt about it. People – good people – had died and he’d enabled it, even if he hadn’t known. And then he’d stopped her, even though he’d known more people would die. “Gabriel, Sam feels guilt about possibly driving over insects on his way to get salad. I don’t think that’s a benchmark we should be using.”_

_“Valid,” Gabriel admitted. Sam glared. Or would have glared, if he had form in his dream-space. “But still – next!”_

The next memory turned out to be a moment with which he was more than familiar. He stood on the edge of the chasm. He could feel Lucifer inside him, struggling against his iron grip. The archangel would not escape; not this time. “It’s okay, Dean,” he gasped out. “I’ve got him.” 

It almost hadn’t worked but in the end it had – he, the abomination, the addict, the unwanted son and the castaway and the millstone around Dean’s neck, had done it. He’d taken control back from the monster possessing his body, stopped him from killing Dean. Surely now Dean would see how much he loved him. Now Dean could be proud of him, call him his brother without that defeated tone. He leaned back and closed his eyes. This was going to hurt but that was okay – he knew that when he’d made this decision and it was worth it, if Dean remembered him well. He leaned back. At least he’d finally gotten something right –

_“No,” Flagstaff’s voice interrupted._

_“What? How is it any different than what he’s trying to do here?” Gabriel objected._

_“Just… no,” the healer shuddered. Sam couldn’t even see her but he heard the shudder. Sam privately agreed with her. He’d done that right, but not fast enough, not soon enough, and of course they hadn’t let the job stay done._

_“All right. How about this?” Gabriel’s tone was resigned and exasperated, and the dream changed again._

Sam was sitting on the hood of the Impala, leaning against the windshield. Some residual heat from the engine warmed his seat and made an excellent contrast to the bite in the October air. Somewhere off in the distance he could smell someone burning leaves. The only things nearby were woods and empty cornfields. No book rested in his hands tonight; there wasn’t even a moon to offer her light, only millions and millions of stars. And Sam was perfectly content to sit and stare at them in silence, all night long if need be. Boots on gravel broke the silence. A beer bottle popped open; cool wet glass pressed itself into his hand. “Thanks,” he murmured. He didn’t want to raise his voice; the night was too perfect to be marred by loud sounds.

Dean didn’t answer; apparently he too appreciated the silence tonight. Instead he circled around the hood of the car before climbing up to the other side and taking his own position on the driver’s side. He had his own beer and he sipped from it. 

Sam never did figure out when it happened. They sat on the hood of the Impala, staring at the sky exactly where they would have been if they were inside the car. They didn’t speak and Sam didn’t move. He didn’t hear Dean move either. Somehow, though, he found his brother right up flush against him, head on his shoulder. Sam didn’t say a word. After a few moments, when he realized that the even tone of Dean’s breathing meant that he’d fallen asleep, he rescued his brother’s beer and wrapped an arm around him. He didn’t fall asleep that night. He was going to make this memory last forever, however long that might be all things considered. 

Sam found himself relaxing into the memory. For a moment, just a brief second, he sensed a distant thrum of satisfaction coming from two different Graces. Soon enough he ignored it, lost in the feeling of an entire night when he’d had his brother to himself and nothing to come between them. 

*

Gabriel looked at Flagstaff. “Well. Glad we found something useful at least.” 

The junior angel shivered. “He’s not a happy man, Gabriel.” 

He snorted. “You think? All right. Let’s get this party started.” 

Castiel provided a knife. “Are you certain there is no other way to summon Dean?” he demanded. 

“I could do it without the blood,” the archangel admitted. “But I want to keep myself a surprise until the last minute. Don’t want to let him know what we’re really planning. Come on, let’s get this show on the road.” 

Castiel looked back at Sam. He’d never seen the younger Winchester look so relaxed or happy as he did now, not even in death. “I suppose we must.”


	3. Chapter 3

The plan was stupid. Castiel did not like the plan. Yes, he and Dean had been close but this… monstrosity wearing his skin was not Dean. Perhaps it could be cured and returned to a state where it was once again Castiel’s best friend, but Heaven’s current administrator – for lack of a better term – wasn’t sure that this was in Dean’s best interests. He would be devastated to learn what he’d done while a demon, all the people he’d killed and worse. If he’d been full of guilt and angst after having tortured in Hell, when he truly hadn’t had a choice, how much more so would the horror be when he faced the consequences of his actions now? He would not be able to live with the shame, the horror. The weight of the memories would crush him, even more so without an Apocalypse to derail that would take his mind off things.

“Perhaps we could put up a wall in his mind,” he suggested as they waited for the demon to respond. 

“No,” Flagstaff glowered. “He needs to understand what he did. Otherwise he’ll just do it again. You don’t learn from your past if you don’t remember it.” 

“He is a good man, Flagstaff.” 

Both the healer and the trickster rolled their eyes. “That won’t help with the second half of Operation Winchester,” Gabriel pointed out. “Or were you planning to just write Sasquatch over here off?” 

He sighed. It was a human habit, although one he’d picked up fairly early from – where? His human vessel? Dean? “I am not convinced that interfering in the brothers’ relationship is the wisest course of action, brother. Their feelings for one another have always been complicated. I don’t know that they will appreciate meddling.” 

“It’s not as though they’ve been able to fix things on their own, Castiel,” Flagstaff pointed out. 

“Perhaps they cannot be fixed,” he suggested, turning to look at her. “I cannot remember a time when Dean took any pleasure from his brother’s presence, and Sam is…” He paused, searching for the best way to describe the younger brother. “He has been deeply troubled for as long as I have known him,” he rephrased. “But he has usually managed to claw some kind of semblance of normal living when he’s separated from his brother. Maybe it is best if they separate.”

Gabriel frowned. “What purpose, exactly, would that serve, genius?” He stepped forward. “They’re the Winchesters.”

“Exactly,” he insisted, refusing to back down even in the face of the infinitely superior power of the sole remaining archangel. “They’re the Winchesters. The fate of the world has rested on their shoulders alone over and over again and they’ve suffered terribly as a result. Don’t you think it’s time for them to… not have to fight?” he finished lamely at Flagstaff’s upraised eyebrow. She might have been his subordinate but somehow he had a hard time facing her disapproval. 

“You’re suggesting that we just let Dean run around as a Knight of Hell.” Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Well, no. I mean, that’s just not even thinkable. But I’m just saying that I’m not sure that what’s gone wrong between them can be fixed just because we want it to be, Gabriel.” He sighed. “Much of it is my doing.” He might have been under orders to widen the cracks between the brothers back before Lucifer rose but it had still been his doing, and he’d never done anything to fill those cracks in after he rebelled despite knowing what he’d done to “help.” And of course what he’d done to Sam had exacerbated tendencies that already existed in the Winchester. 

“Sure it is!” Gabriel declared brightly. “And some of it comes from me – especially the damage to Jolly Green. And a lot of it comes from Daddy. No one, though, has done as much damage to these two as they’ve done to themselves, to each other. At the same time, even you have to admit that they’re pretty damn special. No one knows what might be coming down the pipeline and if it’s their… whatever it was… that saved this world before then shouldn’t we try to fix that same weapon? At least try?” He shook his head. 

Castiel opened his mouth to respond, but in that moment a wave of malice and loathing overwhelmed him. “It’s him,” he identified. “It’s Dean – he’s here.” 

Flagstaff paled, but held her ground. “Are we ready?” she asked. 

Gabriel smirked. “Oh, we’re ready,” he purred as he and Flagstaff made themselves invisible. 

The door flew open. “I thought we’d been over this, Sammy,” Dean said in a casual, friendly voice that only had a hint of tightness underneath it. “You call me, you’re not going to be real thrilled with what shows up.” His eyes were green as he surveyed the room but they slid over to black when he noticed Castiel. Cas swallowed in fear but remained silent, not sure he was ready to hear what his friend had to say. “Well now. Heya, Cas. This is a surprise. I never figured he’d go for help from angels. Whatever. You’re backing the wrong horse here, Cas.” 

Cas frowned. “He is a large man, Dean, but he is not a horse.” He supposed that it was a metaphor but he didn’t have a lot of time or patience to tease out its meaning. He was a warrior, a soldier, not a wordsmith. “You had to know that we would not allow you to remain in the state in which you were.” 

“You don’t really get a choice in this, buddy. Sorry. But what’s done is done, and there really ain’t much you can do about it. Besides.” He put his hands to his chest and smirked. “I kind of like it.”

Cas felt sick. “We will heal you, Dean.” “There’s nothing to heal, Cas.” He spread his arms wide. “For the first time since 1983, I feel… I feel free. Whole. There’s nothing weighing me down or holding me back. I can do what I want when I want. I can think about myself without worrying about anyone else. I screw who I want, I drink what I want. I don’t have to worry about keeping an eye on that useless, pathetic sack of skin sleeping away on that couch over there.” He sneered and gestured toward Sam. “Now look – no hard feelings, Cas. I get it – you’re an angel, I’m a demon. We can’t really be such good buddies as we’ve been in the past –even though,” he added in a lower voice, “we both know you’re not exactly opposed to a little sulfur flavored sugar. Now are you?”

Cas cleared his throat. “If you’re referring to my relationship with Meg, Meg was… different. She was special. And part of what made her different was her connection with your brother.” 

Dean snorted. “You keep telling yourself that… Angel.” He moved suddenly, impossibly fast, with his blade out and toward Sam. 

Gabriel made himself visible then, snapping his fingers. The door repaired itself and the demon found himself frozen in place. The angels stared at him. He stared at his brother stubbornly, willing his body to move for a good thirty seconds before moving his eyes to the angels. “I’m going to pluck every feather from your wings and use them to stuff a duvet,” he spat. 

Gabriel smirked. “Promises promises.” 

“I can actually take you on now, short ass,” Dean growled. “A Knight of Hell is the only thing that can take on an archangel.”

“Besides, you know, your brother. Who has. And he won. But you know, who’s counting?” God’s Messenger stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “Not to toot my own horn here but I seem to be the one who’s got you trapped, bucko. Now. This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to take a divine cheese grater to that nasty little brand my brother left you with. Then we’re going to cure your dose of pinkeye. Blackeye. Whatever.”

“Who says I want to be cured?” Dean snarled.

“You don’t get a choice, Dean,” Cas told him heavily, fetching the demonic cuffs from his bag. It had been years since he’d seen these – not since Alistair’s disastrous captivity. It had been Sam who had saved them then, Sam who now lay near lifeless on the couch. 

“So much for Team Free Will then,” the demon smirked. “I guess that only counts when we’re doing what you winged dicks want?”

“When your free will impinges on the rights of others then yes, others get to override yours,” Flagstaff declared firmly. Castiel knew her fear – Dean had attacked her, had drawn the First Blade on her, before his transformation. Still, she held herself calm and immobile. “You have the right to live your life. Not to slaughter innocents.” 

“There are no innocents, sister,” the demon sneered, and Castiel quailed to hear him speak so.

“I am not your sister.” 

Gabriel gestured and Dean fell silent. His mouth moved and his face turned red, but no sound came out. “Don’t engage the superdemon in a philosophical debate, Flagstaff,” the archangel advised gently. “You’ll just get pissed off. Come on. Let’s strap him down and get this show on the road.” 

Strapping Dean down proved to be more difficult than Castiel had imagined. Gabriel’s spell kept him immobilized, but that meant that they had to physically maneuver him into position. That meant moving his arms, his legs, every part of him into a sitting position instead of the stabbing lunge he’d been frozen into. It took all three of them to do it, too. Dean wasn’t about to make it easy on them or to even make it possible to relax the celestial restraints on his body and he absolutely had to taunt them about their involvement. “So Sammy came crying to you about not being able to clean up his own mess, is that it?” he sneered as the three angels painstakingly shackled one ankle to the leg of the chair. “Suckered you into helping him with those big puppy-dog eyes of his? I can’t believe they still work for a guy his age.” 

“He was right to seek out Gabriel when he was unable to restrain you by himself,” Cas grunted, turning his attention to the other leg.

“He just wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t face what he caused,” Dean continued. “And you were just perfectly happy to jump right in there and help, weren’t you?” 

“Don’t engage, Castiel.” Gabriel spoke through gritted teeth, the effort of maintaining the spell while wrestling with a demon apparently intense. “This isn’t Dean-o. Not really.” 

“But it is me. Really. None of you can face it but it really is me. Just… unburdened. I don’t see why you won’t just let me finish the process. It’s not like any of you had any use for him in the first place, unless it was to do your dirty work.” He gave a low, throaty chuckle. “Oh, what? Did you think I just forgot about that? Or didn’t know? Please. You were perfectly willing to leave half of Sam in the Cage as long as he was fetching and carrying for you and Crowley back in the day. Oh, but somehow I’m the bad guy.” Black eyes glittering with spite turned to Gabriel. “And maybe he didn’t tell me even half of what he went through with the whole thing in Broward County he sure as Hell wasn’t ever the same afterward. And you were more than happy to turn him into a car and make me rummage around in his ass to try to get us to play the roles you and your brothers wanted for us. So you can’t sit here and pretend that you’re on his side all of a sudden.”

Gabriel’s lips pressed shut as Flagstaff got a cuff on his arm. “You probably won’t believe us,” Flagstaff told him as she began to force the other arm down. “And I find that I don’t care. But this is not what Sam wanted. He had a different solution in mind.” 

“And it was dumber than this?” Dean snarled. 

Every muscle in Cas’ vessel hurt. Even his Grace hurt. He hadn’t known that you could strain Grace like a muscle but here he was. “That must have been some plan he had going on there.” 

Cas’ temper got away from him. He lashed out and punched Dean in the jaw. Flagstaff laid a hand on his arm, but the damage was done. He could see – he could smell – the blood coming from his friend’s mouth. “We felt he deserved better,” he growled. 

“And what about what I deserve, huh?” Dean’s words came with droplets of sulfurous blood and spittle. “Do you think that I deserve to go back to a life of constant recrimination and restraint? Is that it? Of constantly having to schlep around someone with more than a foot in the grave and the other one out the door?” 

Cas glanced at Flagstaff and then at Gabriel. Maybe there was some hope. 

“I think that when you decide that slaughtering an entire village worth of people for kicks is a grand way to spend an afternoon then you’ve lost the right to choose,” Gabriel sneered. “I’ve done some nasty shit in my day but hey – I’m me. And first things first – that shiny little mod has to go.” He gripped the Mark of Cain with both hands and the appendages began to glow, bright and white. Ostensibly Castiel knew that this would be the only way to heal the brand on Dean’s flesh; it was created by an archangel’s Grace, after all, and only an archangel’s Grace could heal it. 

He’d only expected more ritual to the cure, more ceremony. This was simply an excision. Gabriel’s face went completely blank as his hands circled around the demon’s forearm and his Grace focused on that narrow little part of his skin with the angry red scar. It took maybe five minutes. Dean didn’t just scream, he howled. His cries echoed off the cheap drywall but the angels had prepared for that. No neighbors would complain, and Gabriel wasn’t so soft-hearted that he was about to let up. The stench of sulfur and brimstone and burning flesh filled the air but in the end he was inexorable.

An ugly red burn, a perfect square of flesh, replaced the stylized jawbone that had previously represented the First Blade and everything that came with it. The wound would scar, there would be no way of getting around that. 

“Well that’s just great,” Dean spat out. “You’ve taken the one great thing from my life.” 

Castiel glanced at Sam’s prone form and closed his eyes. This was not Dean, not really. “We’re ready for the next step in the process,” Flagstaff declared. “The cure.” 

“What’s that now? You think shooting me up with some of Sammy’s toxic blood is going to purify me? I’ve got news for you, sister. I know how this is supposed to work. He hasn’t confessed. He hasn’t done what he needs to do. So your little gambit here isn’t going to do jack or shit.” He smirked. “And then I get right back to my plan with the duvet cover. And a nice leather jacket made from Sammy-boy’s skin. Sound good?”

“I never noticed how much you like to hear yourself talk before, Dean-o.” Gabriel offered up a brilliant, smarmy grin. “As it happens there are some things that archangels get to do that filthy hellspawn like, say, you, do not. Oh – and gods, too. Don’t think we’re limited to Abrahamic methods here, boy.” He patted Dean on the head.

Dean snarled and tried to bite the angel’s arm. “I’m going to scatter your grace from one side of the ocean to the next!” he seethed. 

A rolled-up newspaper appeared in Gabriel’s hand. He smacked Dean on the nose with it – hard. “Bad demon. No brimstone. Oh, there’s a plan here, boy. This is just part of it. And at this point there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it. So you might as well just sit back and accept it. You’re going to be human again. It’s going to happen in about eight hours. And that, Dean-arino, is when the fun really begins. For me anyway.” 

Dean looked at Cas. “Dean-arino?” he mouthed. Cas shrugged.

Gabriel had not, in fact, gotten the blood from Sam. He’d acquired it from a cooperative human priest. After all, Sam’s death would put a serious crimp in Gabriel’s ultimate plan. Cas didn’t know if simply using Sam’s blood for the cure would constitute the abomination completing the third Trial or not but he’d given up quite a bit of blood to summon Dean. No one present honestly believed that if a reaper showed up Sam wouldn’t follow it, especially if the reaper pointed out Gabriel’s duplicity. 

The archangel administered the first injection, prompting a stream of obscenity from Dean. “You’re wasting your time,” the demon insisted. “You can’t cure someone who doesn’t want to be cured, assholes. I’m just going to go out there and find a way to get back to what I’m meant to be and you know it.” 

“Sam will stop you,” Cas informed him. 

“When has he ever managed to stop me from anything?” Dean scoffed. “Come on, Cas. Name one time.” 

“He stopped you from saying ‘yes’ to Michael.” Cas had wanted to stop him, but in the end it hadn’t been the angel. It had been Sam’s love and faith and trust that had done the job. 

“And look how well that turned out. It got our littlest brother locked up in the Cage instead. No one ever thinks of that, do they?” He chuckled. “Kid’s still down there, a chew toy for Michael and Lucifer –“ 

“He is not,” Flagstaff inserted firmly. “His soul is in Heaven. His body is deceased. The sole inmates of the Cage are Michael and Lucifer.”

Dean blinked. “But I chose Sam.”

“And Death returned Sam to you. As requested. But he also delivered Adam unto Heaven. He was not so cruel as to leave the poor boy there.” 

Dean considered this for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. He still had no right to stop me.” 

The angels rolled their eyes as one and declined to engage with the demon until the next injection. 

The next three injections, actually, were not much different from the first. Castiel began to develop a headache. Dean would not have pulled any punches in his attempt to avoid his fate if he’d been human; Dean as a demon was no different. He threatened Flagstaff, reminding her of how easily he’d taken her down before. He mocked Gabriel’s newfound sympathy for Sam, suggesting that it was all part of some kind of sick game or crush on his “demon-spawn” brother. Most of his abuse he saved for Castiel, however. He mocked their friendship. He tore into Castiel’s mistakes – his attempt to lead the angels, how he’d worked with Crowley. How he’d tried to make things better and failed. How he might be pretending to think of Sam now but he hadn’t thought twice about turning the wall in Sam’s head into rubble, into dust, causing him to suffer in ways from which he would never be able to save the man. 

And of course it was all true. The old trope was that demons lied but in Castiel’s experience they mostly told the truth. It hurt more. Cas had done terrible things, and he certainly had little right to call himself Sam’s friend or set himself up as Sam’s protector now. He’d done it specifically to hurt Dean, too – how could he possibly try to claim any kind of kinship or moral high ground here? 

Gabriel’s hand on his shoulder supported him. “Don’t listen to him, bro,” he murmured into Cas’ ear. “We’re going to get him through this.” 

After the fifth injection Dean resorted to begging. “Cas, buddy,” he whispered. “Don’t do this to me. You know I can’t… this isn’t right. You know I can’t take it. I can’t face it.” 

“Dean, it’s necessary. You can’t live as a demon,” he insisted. “We will get you through whatever happens after, but we cannot have you on Hell’s side.” 

“But –“

Of course, the angels had no intention of stopping. 

After the sixth injection he resorted to tears. “I can’t even look at him,” he admitted. “He’s not going to ever want to see me again.”

“He’s your brother and he loves you, Dean,” Cas assured him. “If he did not we wouldn’t be here.” 

“But he… I went after him with a hammer. My own baby brother, it was my job to take care of him and I went after him with a hammer.” He looked at the others. “If she can’t stand to be around me because I pushed her onto the ground how will he be able to even look at me?”

“He loves you, Dean. More than anyone has ever loved you, more than he’s ever loved anyone.” Cas found himself petting the demon’s hair. It had grown longer during his time as a demon. “It will all be well.”

“It will never be okay, Cas. Couldn’t you have just killed me instead?” 

The seventh injection brought incoherence and sobbing grief, but he submitted to it without complaint. The eighth injection brought the final step of the process. Castiel spilled some extra blood from the priest across his palm and spoke the words of the cleansing exorcism, clapping his hand over the demon’s mouth. Dean sagged in his bonds for a moment and an oily, smoky sensation tickled Cas’ grace. Then there was only Dean – that beautiful if somewhat twisted soul that he’d pulled from the Pit himself. 

Flagstaff stepped in to heal the wounds that still lingered from Dean’s time as a demon. For a moment, Dean just sat in Cas’ arms. Then he rose and went to look at his brother.

“So what’s his deal, then?” His words were gruff, clipped. He sounded indifferent. He reached out tenderly, though, and stroked his brother’s face with a trembling hand. 

Gabriel gave a wicked grin. “Now this here? This is my reward, bucko.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dean wasn’t sure if the human mind could literally spin, but “literal” was kind of relative when you brought angels into the picture. Especially archangels. Especially Gabriel. He remembered being a demon. He remembered being a Knight of Hell – in fact the feathery douche had been pretty insistent about how absolutely vital it was that Dean remember every minute of his brief time as one of the things he hunted. He remembered the urge to kill, to draw blood from everything he saw. He remembered the need to make everyone and everything suffer and he wanted to vomit because he couldn’t deny it, even though he hated it. That burning need to turn Gabriel’s wings into luxurious bedding, though – that he stood by. Someday he was going to make good on that. 

When the day had begun he’d been a demon – the most powerful demon on the planet, the only Knight of Hell left. There had been nothing that could stop him, or so he’d thought. Then he’d been summoned with a summons he couldn’t deny, and then he’d been restrained by the diminutive puffball, and then the Mark that made him who and what he was had been burned away with more pain than he’d ever felt in his life (and he’d studied under Alistair – he knew pain), and then he’d been forcibly cured and returned to a pathetic conscience-riddled human. And then – and then! He’d been forcibly inserted into Sam’s brain. 

Because one tour of Hell wasn’t enough. 

He knew - well, he didn’t _know_ but he knew - what lay inside his brother’s mind, all those centuries of torment that he kept bottled up and never talked about ever. The stuff that had been locked up in his own brain hadn’t exactly been suitable for public consumption before his stint with Crowley, never mind now. The stuff Sam had locked up in here, the stuff he’d experienced second-hand when the kid couldn’t keep his realities separated anymore, well - there was a reason Sam had almost died from it, right?

Wherever he was now, though – this part didn’t seem so bad. He wasn’t sure where they were. It had to be someplace northern because of the trees, and it had to be somewhere rural because the trees lined the horizon and framed endless cornfields. Somewhere someone burned leaves. The crispness to the air suggested October. No moon marred the perfection of the night sky; no light pollution from any nearby city or town offended the stars either. He looked around. The road stretched out behind him with no clues as to location or timing. This could be any time before he became a demon or it could be no time at all. He patted himself down but Gabriel had deposited him here with no weapon, nothing to fight whatever monsters lurked in Sammy’s freaky, damaged little mind. He turned around and looked in front of him. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he finally spotted her: the Impala, only visible because the chrome reflected the occasional star. 

He strode forward. Now he could see better. Sam was sitting on the hood. He was the only guy in the world who could use a ’67 Impala as a goddamn lounger and that was the truth; his stupidly long legs stretched out on the hood and his stupidly long back was all splayed out on the windshield. He looked like himself, or like he had when Dean had taken the hammer to his arm. He wasn’t alone, though. Dean saw himself beside Sam, snuggled up right beside his brother with his head on his shoulder. He looked a bit younger but it was hard to tell by how much.. The scene definitely dated to some point after he’d gotten Sammy from Stanford; definitely before he’d become a demon. 

Dean – real Dean, not the facsimile of himself that Sam seemed to enjoy using as a body pillow or whatever – cleared his throat. “All right, Sammy. Cuddle time’s over. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” In a way he didn’t want to interrupt. Sam looked happy. He looked peaceful. He looked content. None of those three words could be used to describe Sam in… well, in all the time they’d been hunting together, and now it was on Dean to break that happiness and peace and contentment to draw him back into the misery and crap once again. Christ, no wonder the kid had been so eager to go running off with Death. 

Sam startled. His eyebrows drew together in that hurt-surprised look he got sometimes, more often lately than when they were younger, and he got off the car. The construct of Dean didn’t move, which was creepy as Hell. Dean shuddered before both the human and the car faded away. “Dean?” Sam frowned. “What the Hell are you doing here?” 

“Saving your ass. Again.” Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on. Let’s get your Sasquatch ass out of here.” 

“No no no.” Sam stood back, shaking his head. “You’re… you’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to know me. You’re not supposed to remember. What’s really going on here?”

“What the hell do you mean I’m not supposed to remember? You got Gabriel to freaking cure me, remember?” Anger coursed through him. “You’re in a dream, Sam. Your body is rotting on a couch in a shitty apartment in … is it Toledo? I think it’s Toledo.”

“It’s Cincinnati,” he frowned. “I know it’s a dream, Dean. It was only supposed to last long enough to get rid of the stupid Mark. There was a plan. You’re not supposed to remember me. You’re not supposed to know who I was. I’m … you know what? Forget about it.” His eyes narrowed and his lips folded in frustration. Dean wasn’t stupid, no matter how many people pointed out that he was a blunt instrument. He could see that his brother was shutting down, shutting him out. 

A burst of white light blinded them both briefly as Gabriel appeared before them. “No, Sam. No forgetting. Sorry, kid. If Dean wants to forget everything he’ll have to do it the old fashioned way – cheap vodka.”

Sam’s nostrils flared. Sometimes an angry Sam reminded Dean of an enraged bull. “We had a deal, Gabriel.”

“Yeah, well, I lied. Things change. This is what’s going to happen. You boys are going to work your shit out. Here.” 

“In my head.” 

Dean would not have wanted to be Gabriel in that moment. “Yep.”

“That’s not what we agreed to.” 

Dean looked at Sam. “You cut a deal with Gabriel?” 

“Apparently it doesn’t matter.”

“Nope. Look. I took the Mark off him. We got him cured. All I want from the two of you now is for you to remember what it is that brought you together and kept you together in the first place. There is a timer. If you can’t get your shit together by then…” He raised one eyebrow. 

“Then what?” Dean scowled. “We’re trapped in Beautiful Mind territory forever?” He could feel the bitchface scalding the back of his neck but didn’t look, couldn’t look. 

“No. Sam goes to Heaven. You get to go try to clean up your mess by yourself.” The archangel gave him the nastiest grin he’d seen outside of Hell. “And you get to remember everything.” 

“Damn it, Gabriel, he wasn’t supposed to remember,” Sam growled, stepping forward and grabbing the smaller man by the lapels. “That was the whole point!”

“Sam,” Gabriel told him gently, placing a hand on his face. “You’ve saved the world twice at least – personally. I’m sorry. I can’t… we’ve never been friends. But you’ve been too valuable to let you do that to yourself. Sorry, kiddo. I’m a dick. I know.” He stepped back. “Anyway. Clock’s ticking.” He disappeared again.

Dean turned to his brother. “So,” he snarled, unable to help himself. “Gadreel making sure you wouldn’t eject him before you were ready – that wasn’t okay. That was me messing with your memories, screwing with your mind. But your deal with Gabriel, that was you messing with my mind and that was just fine?” 

Sam gave a snort. “No one was going to touch your mind, Dean. Believe me.” 

“Don’t you lie to me, Sam. Because that’s what I just heard.”

“No. It isn’t.” He started off down the road.

Damn it. How was he supposed to fix whatever Gabriel wanted him to fix if the kid kept taking off? “That’s what it sounded like to me. Why don’t you tell me what he meant, huh? What the hell kind of deal did you make where I wasn’t going to remember anything if it wasn’t going to mess with my memories?” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “You remember Anna? Her plan to go back in time and make sure I never happened?” 

“Yeah, but that was stupid, Sammy. Cas said so at the time.” He blinked. “I mean, come on.” 

“Cas was lying, Dean. He was lying for your sake. The deal I made with Gabriel, the one he reneged on, was to go back and erase me from history. “ He glared at the space where the angel had last been. “Your mind would have been left intact. There wouldn’t have been anything to erase.” 

Dean’s mouth went dry. “Jesus, Sam. Why would you…” He couldn’t feel his fingers, couldn’t feel his toes. Sam had tried not only to end his life, but end the fact that he’d ever existed. Again - he’d tried it before, even reminded Dean that he’d tried it before. Sam hated him so much that he couldn’t stand to have even been around Dean in his past. 

“You were a demon, Dean! You turned yourself into a demon because you couldn’t trust me to get the goddamn job done! And because you couldn’t just let me go when my time came, even though you had a better brother and better backup and better everything. No Sam, no demon. No Apocalypse, no soulless guy, no nothing. You would have had a perfectly normal, perfectly good life with both Mom and Dad. I couldn’t save you from being a demon by curing you but I could save you this way.” 

A chill ran through Dean’s veins, but he couldn’t let Sam know. “So much for not saving me.” 

“Not what I said,” his brother snapped. “I said I wouldn’t have had you possessed, because there are some fates that are worse than death. Come on. I know you don’t want to be stuck in here any longer than you have to be.”

“You shouldn’t have made that deal, Sammy,” he chided, scurrying to catch up to his brother’s long strides. “When has a deal ever gone right for us?”

“Figured Gabriel hated me enough to be willing. Never thought I’d get the ‘so much to live for’ bullshit from him.” He snorted. 

“What the Hell, Sammy? It’s not bullshit,” Dean blurted. “It’s fact. You don’t just cash in your chips.” Nothing from the ramrod-straight back. “Sammy – hey. What’s the deal? It’s not like we can go anywhere. Not until Chuckles’ ‘timer’ runs out.” 

“It’s my dream. There has to be a way to get you out of it. It’s not like this is my first dreamwalk, you know? I’m not letting you get stuck in my screw up again.” A crowbar appeared in his hand. 

Dean winced. Who knew what the kid could unleash if he started hacking at his own dreamscape? “Okay, look. We know that he wants us to, uh, remember what brought us together. Right? So, whatever we see in here is probably going to be the good stuff?” Was there going to be good stuff in Sam’s brain, in his memories? There sure hadn’t been good family memories in his Heaven, just flight and isolation. They had to find something, or else he was going to lose Sam forever. “You go messing with things, I mean, we know what’s locked up in your head ain’t exactly pretty. Let’s just see where the memories take us, man.” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “You want to just sit back and wait.” 

“I think it’s a better idea than you hacking up your own brain and bringing Lucifer back.”

Sam shook his head, but he slowed down. “Whatever.” 

“So what happens next?” Dean wanted to know. “Is it just, like a replay? Do we have to interact?”

The scene changed. Dean recognized it; they were in central Jersey somewhere on a hunt. He’d been all of what, eighteen? And Sammy would have been maybe fourteen? Thirteen? Scrawny and all hair and eyes and angst. The case was a vengeful spirit – the ghost of a little girl who had been killed some two hundred years ago over a ceramic doll or something. Dean remembered fighting the thing and having left Sammy at the motel some three towns away – it was way too dangerous to have a kid like Sammy, all little and still growing into his body and everything and it wasn’t like Dad trusted him. 

Still, the girl might be dead and tiny but she had enough strength to pick him up and throw him bodily into a tree. He sagged, stunned, to the ground. And there was Sammy, running through the woods. “I remember that now,” Dean grinned. “How’d you get there again?” 

“Stole a car,” Sam admitted. “Stole the doll, too. The museum where it was kept had crap security. It was easy.” 

The memory-Sam held the doll out to the ghost, who paused in her attempt to slay Dean. “I don’t remember this part,” he admitted.

“You were in and out of consciousness. Dad was pretty pissed that I left the room.” He shrugged. “It was the first time that I felt like I’d contributed. You didn’t really know – I mean, you were out for most of it and Dad didn’t give a crap because I broke orders – but I still knew, you know?” He looked away and kept walking. “Let’s just get you out of here.” 

“So you really didn’t… want me to remember you at all.” Dean looked away. His brother’s best memories of him included having braved their father’s wrath to have felt like he’d done something to be part of the team, and he wanted to erase it all. To make everything disappear. How did that even happen? How did that even work? 

“I don’t want to have existed at all. I’ll find another way. Gabriel seemed like the best way to make it happen but there has to be another way, right?” 

They strolled into another memory. This one was of a pool hall, a nameless dive in a long list of nameless dives that Dean had pretty much long since forgotten. Sam was playing the clumsy drunk and scamming people out of their money, filling up the Winchester coffers the only way they knew how. Dream-Dean watched, ready to stand in if things got ugly. “Not gonna happen, Sam,” Dean declared, watching the scene unfold. “Jesus, it’s been a long time since we’ve hustled pool together hasn’t it? You haven’t even had that shirt since before you jumped.” 

“I’m pretty sure you salted and burned it before the ground closed behind me. And yeah. We haven’t hustled anything together since before… before Lilith.” Dean would have had to really have his head in the sand to miss the way Sam hesitated before continuing with that thought. “You prefer to do your hustling alone these days.” Dream-Sam finished his game and collected his winnings, “stumbling” off toward the exit. 

Of course the memory was Sam’s so the dream only followed him outside, to where he climbed into the Impala and waited patiently sprawled all over the passenger seat waiting for his brother. Dean had waited a respectable amount of time before showing up to come get him. It would have been dangerous to show up and be obvious, but when he did the brothers’ shoulders touched. 

God how he missed those days - it was like there was an invisible wall between them, a duct-tape line down the center of the front seat of the Impala, and he couldn’t pretend that it had only existed since Sam found out about Gadreel. It had been there since Purgatory, maybe even before. Maybe since Ruby, maybe since Dad had - no, not since then. “It’s not like you ever liked kind of thing anyway,” Dean dismissed. In the light from the overhead the brothers counted their haul. It would be enough to get them through for a little while at least. “You loathed the hustling, the credit card scams.” 

The million-watt grin on Dream-Sammy’s face made the words taste like ash. “Yeah. I did.” He turned away and kept walking. 

“So, why is this showing up now?” Dean scrambled after him again. Geez, it sometimes felt like he spent his whole life scrambling after Sam. He’d always moved a mile a minute. “I mean, these are supposed to be your good memories, right? Seems like it’s more like one of mine.”

“You think I’m running this ride?” He gave that little huff that passed for laughter these days. 

He grabbed Sam’s arm and found himself startled to feel the guy tense up. The contrast to the relaxed, laughing Sammy from the most recent memory was not lost on him. “You don’t think it might be important?” 

“I think it doesn’t matter, Dean.” 

The dream shifted. Another unidentifiable, crappy town, another unidentifiable, crappy motel. Dream-Sam was sitting alone at the crumbling, tilting table looking at the laptop. This was an old one, Dean couldn’t even tell how old. Again, it was post-Stanford but pre-demon, probably pre-Apocalypse if the hair was anything to go by. A key turned in the lock. “It’s just your life at stake, Sammy,” Dean groused, rolling his eyes.

In the memory, Dream-Dean entered the motel room with a woman on each arm. One was blonde. One was a redhead. Dream-Sam rolled his eyes and began shutting the laptop down. “Just gimme a minute,” he muttered.

“Oh no no no, Sammy,” Dream-Dean shook his head, laughing a little bit. “You weren’t coming out to the party, so big brother brought the party to you.” 

Real-Sam studiously ignored the memory being played before him. “My life,” he pointed out. “My life, my choice. Let’s just get you out of here, okay? I’m pretty sure this is the last thing you want to be reminded of.” 

Dean snorted. Dream-Dean was still speaking. “This is Louise, and this is Kendra, and they’re both kind of kinky. Kendra here has a real thing for overly tall nerds who don’t know how to have a little fun once in a while. You do remember fun, right?” 

“I remember this,” Dean admitted after a moment. “Man that was a good night. It’s been a real long time since we did anything like that.” In the memory Kendra sauntered over to Dream-Sammy and straddled him right on the chair. “That Kendra – she knew what she wanted all right. And you knew how to give it to her.” 

The scenario continued to play out. Dean watched. Sam did not – in fact, he kept his back turned the entire time. “It really bothers you to remember a good time that much, huh?” Dean shook his head. “But your Heaven was all about getting away from your family so I guess I’m not surprised.” 

“Oh would you give it a rest?” Sam kept walking down the road. “That half-assed Heaven was completely engineered by Zachariah to drive us apart and it worked. Perfectly. You couldn’t wait to give it up for Michael as soon as we got back.” He shook his head, still walking. “This whole thing is a waste of time.” 

“So what, you’re going to pretend that those weren’t part of your Heaven?” Dean challenged. 

“Did I look particularly enthusiastic about any of them?” He thought about that one. “Well, maybe seeing Bones again. That was pretty nice. But Dean, you have to know that my even being in Heaven was a last minute thing, an opportunity for the bad guys. I was never going to Heaven.” 

“Joshua seemed to think you’d been there before.”

He shrugged. “So what? Angels lie, Dean. If they didn’t you wouldn’t freaking be here. You wouldn’t remember me at all, because that was the whole point. Let’s just keep moving, all right? I’m not exactly thrilled about having you in here.” 

The next memory was older, but Dean had it too. This one was the night in the field with the fireworks. Only in Sam’s version, there was a lot less of Dean-the-hero and a lot more of the brothers almost getting caught and running off together. “Why not?” Funny how they could both remember the same thing in such completely different ways. If he thought about it objectively yeah, they’d almost gotten caught. They’d had to do a lot of running and a whole lot of sneaking to get out of trouble for almost burning down that whole field. But those weren’t the parts that had made him happy, that had welcomed him to Heaven. It had been all about Sam looking up to him with those shining hazel eyes and knowing that he was his brother’s hero. For Sam, apparently, it was the two of them together, alone in evading the authorities and come to think of it Sam had been pretty damn creative in getting them out of some jams that night. 

“It’s my mind, Dean. They’re my memories.” “Obviously they don’t mean a lot to you since you wanted to obliterate them from existence.” 

Dean made a face. Sam stopped in his tracks and for a moment Dean thought his brother might hit him. It wasn’t something Sam usually did – that was generally Dean’s thing, his right as an older brother. He got himself under control. “You don’t get it, do you?” Sammy growled. 

Dean could see those giant hands balled into fists. “Why don’t you educate me, Sam?” 

“They’re memories that are important to me. Not to you. I remember these times. You don’t. I remember hanging out together, having fun together. I remember the good times. I remember the times when I felt like I was useful to you, that I could help you. That I was more than some burden, something you were saddled with. A job. That was all an illusion, my own arrogance shining through. All of this? It’s a lie. There was never a point when you saw me as your partner, as someone you just cared about because I was useful or valuable for my own sake. Okay? I was just a problem that needed to be contained. I get it. I got it a long time ago and I’m sorry you had to put up with that.” 

Dean’s throat ran dry. “Sammy, no.” He shook his head, not sure if he could deflect the words just by moving his ears or maybe convince his brother that they weren’t true with a simple gesture. “It’s not like that.”

Sam snorted and kept walking. The dream changed again, shifting to another memory. This time it was that room in that warehouse in wherever-the –fuck, when Cas and Uriel had him torturing Alistair. What a clusterfuck that had been, because Uriel had been a traitor and Alistair had gotten away from him, beaten him to within an inch of his life and apparently Sam had shown up to tear him to shreds. He’d been horrified at the time because Sam had used his powers and then he’d known what the source of those powers was. “This – this is a good memory for you?”

“I told you I’m not driving the bus here.” Dream-Sam killed Alistair as Castiel watched in horror, and then the scene morphed into the hospital. Dean watched as his brother lit into Cas for his incompetence, advocated for a miracle healing for Dean. This, then was the moment he’d truly lost his awe of the angels.

“You were standing up for me,” Dean realized. Funny how Cas hadn’t mentioned that part.

“Yeah well someone had to.” He kept walking.

“Sam,” Dean called out. 

“What?”

“When did we get so wrong?”

He heaved a heavy sigh. “I don’t know, Dean.” He turned around. “I sometimes think… we were never really right, you know? I mean, when I was younger I thought it was good for a while. But I mean… we both know that Dad never saw me as anything but a problem to be solved. And I don’t think you ever saw me any differently. You know?” 

Dean reached out to grab his brother’s hand. “Sammy, no.” He felt tears stinging his eyes. “I mean, there were some problems. And they did kind of, you know, center around you there, for a while. But you’re my whole world, Sammy. I mean, I killed –“ 

“Yeah. But I didn’t ask you to sacrifice for me. I didn’t want you to suffer for me. Kind of the opposite. And you’ve held it against me every time you did.” He dropped Dean’s hand. “All I’ve tried to do is prove myself to you. I had a chance to stay in here, you know.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“After my wall. You know. I had to choose. Assimilate the Hell memories and lose my mind and all that – and come back to you – or stay here, in the good memories. Stay dreaming until my body finally just quit.” He gave a little laugh. “I thought – I said, ‘I can’t leave my brother alone out there.’ You’d have been so much better off if I had.”

“Sammy, no.” He felt a shock run through his body, leaving numbness in its wake. How long had his brother felt this way? Hadn’t their talk in the church, when he’d stopped Sam from sealing up Hell, solved this? “Come on. I’ll grant that it’s been a crappy few years but we can get back to the good times if we try.”

He had tried. He’d tried to bring Sam out to bars once or twice, once when he’d gotten back from Purgatory anyway. Sam hadn’t been interested. He’d thought Sam was just too stuck up or maybe just too hung up on his girl and his dog. Maybe he’d already been too lost. Maybe Dean himself had been too angry, too bitter. Had pushed him away.

“Not if they were only in my head, Dean.” He shook his head. “Look, you’d rather spend your time with Crowley or Cas. That’s fine, I’m not jealous.”

“Bullshit.” 

“I’m not. I mean, it bugs me a bit because I’m not really sure where I went wrong but whatever. People grow apart –“ 

“Sammy, shut up and listen for a second okay?” He sighed. “Maybe I’ve been scared, okay?” 

“Scared? Of what?”

“You think I haven’t noticed your… uh, tendencies? They’ve always been there, Sammy. They’ve just gotten worse over the years. And it ain’t like there’s ever been anyone who hasn’t gone off and left me before. Even you.” He sighed. “So I mean… it’s like… I mean I love you but it’s not like you want to be hunting. So maybe I’ve been… more distant. Not really wanting to be… shit, Sammy this is the weakest talk ever.” 

Sam sighed. A bench appeared behind them and Dean sat on it. “Look, Dean. There’s a lot going on in here. You’re not responsible for all of it. And you can’t fix all of it. Don’t you think it would be better for everyone if it just… had never been there? I mean, you could be a fireman like you always wanted. Or a mechanic. Or an engineer.” 

He laughed. “An engineer? Really Sammy?” 

“Really, Dean. I always figured you’d be a decent engineer. MIT, probably. Caltech would just piss you off.” He offered a shy grin. “If it weren’t for me you’d have had that.”

“Nah. I wouldn’t be me without you, Sam. I mean it,” he added when he saw the eye roll. “I mean, yeah. There was too much responsibility put on me. And that was… well, Dad did what he had to.” He held up a hand when he saw the thundercloud on Sam’s face. “What’s done is done. But I mean, how much of what you’re calling smart is because I had to figure out how to answer your constant ‘why’ and ‘how?’” He chuckled. “Maybe it’s not great to be so wrapped up in another person that you wouldn’t be you without them. But what’s done is done.” 

“But Dean, you’d be healthier. If I weren’t here you could at least heal, have a life. Be happy.” 

“Sam,” Dean frowned, “I don’t think Feathers is going to make that an option. And frankly I don’t want him to. I want to see you smile again, Sam. I want to see some good memories that happen after you got out of that fucking cage.” 

“Dean –“ 

“I mean it, Sammy. You’re going to have a lot of crap to slog through to get there. Me too. But we’re going to get there.” 

“You keep saying that.” 

“Yeah well this time I’m giving you permission to kick me in the nads if I get off track, okay?”

Bright light filled the scene. Dean felt the sudden wash of peace that came with the application of Grace. 

*

Gabriel looked at the other angels. “Really, Gabriel? You don’t think the penthouse at the Waldorf-Astoria is a little much?” Flagstaff demanded, raising an eyebrow. 

“What?” He adopted a posture of angelic innocence. “They’ve had a long day. Both of them. And the beds are nice.” 

“There is one bed,” Castiel intoned. “Not two.” 

“It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had to double up,” the archangel waved. “They’ll be fine. It’s a king. Loosen up, Cassie.”

“Don’t call me Cassie.” He sat down on the couch. 

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” 

“For them? Sure. For normal people? No way in Hell. But they never were.” He shrugged. “They weren’t ever healthy in the first place. But they should be able to get back to saving each other and the world, instead of destroying each other and the world, once they wake up.” 

Flagstaff sighed. “I still don’t like the idea of leaving them alone like this.” She went to check on the slumbering brothers. “We’ve disengaged their minds, correct?” 

Gabriel frowned. “Yeah, I made sure. I mean, it’s possible Sam’s psychic crap might have reached out and –“ 

“They’re cuddling.”

“Cuddling,” Cas repeated.

She held the door open and gestured. 

Sam was sleeping on his side, arms wrapped around Dean. Dean had curled into his brother’s body, arm pillowed not on the high-luxury pillows provided by the hotel but on his brother’s arm. 

Gabriel sighed and relaxed into the couch. “I think this calls for a few celebratory drinks.” He snapped his fingers and a full tray of mimosas appeared on the coffee table. 

Castiel frowned. “I hardly think imbibing around humans is the best idea.”

“Castiel?” Flagstaff suggested. 

“Yes?”

“Have a drink.”

“I – of course.”


End file.
